As survivors beg for information on their loved ones, I am brought back to the moment I learned that nine rounds ended my best friend’s life.

Twelve empty cubicles. Twelve dinner tables with one empty seat. Twelve caskets ordered. Twelve more dead in a familiar American tale. I would tell you to stop me if you’ve heard this one, but there’s no point; I know you have. This time, tragedy struck a crowded country dance bar in Thousand Oaks, California.

This country's streets have become a war zone, and the list of communities reeling from gun violence gets longer every day. Communities like mine. On June 12, 2016, Orlando was the headline. And though it has been over two years since that night, the trauma feels fresh on days like this one when a gunman opened fire for almost three minutes.

In the eyes of the survivors, I see the same fear I felt as I crouched on the floor of a bathroom at Pulse Nightclub. In their stories, I hear the same gunshots and screams. And as mothers and survivors beg for information on their loved ones, I am brought back to the moment I learned that nine rounds from an assault rifle ended my best friend’s life on the dance floor.

My heart breaks for the people of Thousand Oaks. I grieve for those survivors because what comes next is equally painful. They will endure years of nightmares, emotional breakdowns and pain.

'Nowhere at all is safe'

I am sad that we live in an America where no school, movie theater, church, concert, nightclub, grocery store, yoga studio, nowhere at all is safe. But today, I am also angry. Enraged. Disgusted.

How long will we have to hold our breath when we turn on the news for fear that another public space has become a hunting ground? In the past two week and half we’ve seen a shooting in at a synagogue in Pittsburgh where 11 died and another in yoga studio in Tallahassee where two died.

How long do we need to beg for people in power to take this seriously? Around 800,000 people marched in Washington, D.C., this past March, following the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

How many mothers need to bury their children before America admits it has a problem? This morning’s massacre in Thousand Oaks is the 307th mass shooting of 2018. We are only on day 312. And we would by lying to ourselves if we said we think it will be the last.

America, we have a responsibility. We need to lift up and care for those impacted in Thousand Oaks. We need to let them scream, let them cry, and offer our collective shoulder for them to lean on. But we also need to take a hard look in the mirror. How many times have our neighbors been gunned down only for us to change the channel? It seems we’ve already forgotten about the yoga studio shooting in Tallahassee, the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh or the high school shooting in Parkland — which all happened this year and were the topic of national conversation.

How often do we say “it could never happen here” until it’s too late and we’re burying the ones we love? We have a responsibility to ask hard questions and acknowledge that each of us plays a role in what comes next. But the greatest responsibility we have as Americans is to get fed up. Fed up with hollow thoughts and prayers. Fed up with political gridlock and apathy. Fed up with having to look over our shoulders. Fed up with the status quo and ready to demand a fix to our gun laws.

Twelve voices snuffed out. Twelve names added to the long list of American gun violence victims. Twelve more reasons for us to stand up, raise our voices, and refuse to let this be our normal.

Brandon Wolf is a survivor of the Pulse Nightclub shooting of 2016. He is also the vice president of The Dru Project, an LGBTQ+ advocacy organization. You can follow him on Twitter: @bjoewolf.